2013/10/31 by Xiaoguang Luo, Kailin Long, Jun Wang +3
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Advanced Thermoelectric Materials and Devices #Coefficient of performance #Electron #Heat engine #Maximum power principle #Molecular Junctions and Nanostructures #Refrigerator car #Seebeck coefficient #Thermoelectric cooling #Thermoelectric effect #Thermoelectric generator #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.4885295
published as J. Appl. Phys. 115, 244306 (2014) · no layout, 20 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables
arxiv created 2014/06/22 · openalex publication_date 2014/06/26 · arxiv updated 2014/06/27 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Theoretical thermoelectric nanophysics models of low-dimensional electronic heat engine and refrigerator devices, comprising two-dimensional hot and cold reservoirs and an interconnecting filtered electron transport mechanism have been established. The models were used to numerically simulate and evaluate the thermoelectric performance and energy conversion efficiencies of these low-dimensional devices, based on three different types of electron transport momentum-dependent filters, referred to herein as kx, ky, and kr filters. Assuming the Fermi-Dirac distribution of electrons, expressions for key thermoelectric performance parameters were derived for the resonant transport processes, in which the transmission of electrons has been approximated as a Lorentzian resonance function. Optimizations were carried out and the corresponding optimized design parameters have been determined, including but not limited to the universal theoretical upper bound of the efficiency at maximum power for heat engines, and the maximum coefficient of performance for refrigerators. From the results, it was determined that kr filter delivers the best thermoelectric performance, followed by the kx filter, and then the ky filter. For refrigerators with any one of three filters, an optimum range for the full width at half maximum of the transport resonance was found to be <2kBT.